Alarm clock
by Ark Q
Summary: Two minutes away from Hell.


**A/N Because I completely fell for the scene when Tate is waiting for the alarm to ring.**

*ALARM CLOCK*

You never thought a night could last so long. The numbers on the alarm clock display look all the same, the time makes fun of you, it doesn't give a fuck, it enjoys the famished demon guzzling down pain inside your eyes and it couldn't care less of what those eyes are close to witness. Seconds dressed in years. Years dressed in eternity. You've learnt long ago that signs are made for saints and pretty people, and you know you're neither of them, so what is this night about? What kind of sign are you waiting for?

"Get. The fuck. Out. Of my head."

And then what?

"_Now_."

So ignore me. I'm just one of the countless voices hissing now, it's crowded down here, I bet you can barely hear me. Hush me with indifference. Come on, Tate, you're the master of indifference, how hard can it be?...

"I said GET OUT!"

You want to wake up the entire house?

"Like I care."

You do. This may be your only real problem.

"Look, there's the clock: you've got less than two minutes. What do you wanna do? You wanna save me in two minutes? Is that your plan? Are these one hundred and twenty fucking seconds the signs that you think I'm so desperately waiting for?"

Don't play with me.

"Then _leave_."

If only there weren't so many who already did. Possibly a little too many, don't you agree? And every time the same revolting pattern, the same unsaid goodbyes, that long and aching game of distances. They all act like uncomfortable characters of you story. They leave. They leave before leaving.

"Oh God, would you shut up already…"

I told you: ignore me. If you want to ignore me, just do it.

"You're distracting me."

From splashing around in own misery.

"From building my own happiness, you asshole."

Happiness? What a highly unusual word coming from your lips tonight. I wonder how long have you been asking yourself if this is the way happiness is supposed to look like or if someone somewhere messed up. If this is just another brutal, unjustified mistake.

"Hey time's ticking: just a minute left."

I'm sorry, who are you counting for?

"Didn't you want to save me?"

Why do time start mattering just when one is one step away from death.

"It's just one of the many hilarious tricks of human existence. Maybe that's why people laugh at God."

I don't see you laugh.

"I am. Really. Don't worry."

Oh I wish I could. Really. See, this may be _my_ only real problem: I cannot stop worrying about you.

"And I can honestly say I don't have give a fuck. If you expect me to feel compassion you seriously need to revalue your strategy."

You lack of compassion and I lack of the power to make you change your whole destiny in a single minute, so I guess we're even. Who am I kidding: I didn't manage before, I'm not going to succeed now. There are no signs without the will to see them. Trust me, you would know. You would see me.

"Where are you."

Where I've been all along.

"Where?"

Life looks so skinny on you from here. You think I don't notice it? How it devours you from the inside, how it clings to the walls of your stomach, it's got claws and fangs and pours salt into the mouths of open wounds. It's life that famished demon crawling in your eyes, isn't it.

"Jesus Christ, finally. It took you ages to get it."

Yet there's something else I still don't get.

"What else."

Why are you dying sad.

"But I'm not dying sad."

You aren't?

"I've been living sad, true. But I'm dying angry."

And the numbers on the alarm clock display keep on spinning. Time still makes a fool of you: we are ten seconds away from pure Hell. The air is getting thick, the room is getting small. You can't decide whether to remember, to forget, to hold on, to let go, jumping in and out that line between what you want to be and you wish you weren't, when every disappointment's a stronger shame, every hope's a brittle dream, silence yells but nobody listens, you could make all this mean something but it's meaningful things that hurt you the most so no, you belong to the emptiness. Nine seconds left: what's breathing into you, Tate Langdon, is it God or the Devil?

"Why do people always assume I have the privilege of either of their presences. And what it's craziness if not the ultimate unworthiness of being neither good or bad."

Eight. The voices has started sinking into the conscience: it's just you and me now.

"Ten, eight, one: when this is over there won't be time at all, oh yes. And I will stop keeping track of it on the skin of my inner arm. I'll be timeless. Invincible. I'll be immortal."

You'll be damned.

"Tell me the difference."

Seven seconds, it's time for you to meet the memories of your illegitimate past. Meet them one by one: from the moment you opened the first time your eyes to the world- innocent, unscathed- to the creaked blossoming of your youth.

"Why would I want to do that."

How the light got darker year after year…

"Why would I think about my past today?"

To recognize your enemies tomorrow?

"Six seconds."

Five. We're getting close.

"Will you come with me?"

Four. Take this very second to pray for all the souls you're about to steal from our lonely world. Pay and honour their unfulfilled heavens.

"Nope, three."

They will not find peace, Tate.

"I won't pray for anybody."

You have chosen the blood to be your priest: be so king to let them choose too.

"Well then maybe we'll pray together. We'll pray together because the world is such a filthy, filthy place and we are going to be the only ones who got saved from the poisonous call of seasons."

Is this how you imagined it to be? Two.

"Maybe you're right, maybe I am waiting. I'm waiting for you to answer."

One.

"Shit, so?"

Only one, Tate.

"Will you?"

I thought you wanted me to leave. But I will come with you, yes. I will be there to dry the tears, even those you won't cry but shoot against the ghosts inside your head so that you can become ghost yourself. I will be there for you to say goodbye to the main character of you own story and turn off the alarm clock for the very last time. We'll cross the actual night side by side. After all, what kind of guardian angel I would be if I didn't?...

"Zero."

**[ A/N I'll come back for all the grammar mistakes, sorry ;) ]**


End file.
